


to hold with those (who favor fire)

by rvnkings



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Edward likes the ocean, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Healing, M/M, Some softness, They'll Be Ok, Written on a Dare, edward is sad, jacob likes edward, ps: the warning is for bella, screaming: i'm not even in this fandom, so is jacob, sorry Bella, the works, warning for suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 19:16:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19383073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rvnkings/pseuds/rvnkings
Summary: The first time I realized I loved Jacob Black, it was a Thursday.Or: Bella is killed by James in the first installment, and the two boys find comfort in each other.





	to hold with those (who favor fire)

**Author's Note:**

> If there are any canonical mistakes, especially about the mechanics of being a vampire, I apologize!!!  
> 

The first time I realized I loved Jacob Black, it was a Thursday.

The sky was grey. 

The sky was always grey, because it was Forks, and that's just how things were. I remember thinking that it matched the color of her eyes. 

_Bella._

She'd been gone for over a year. I still thought about her all the time. I wished I that could sleep- wished that I could close my eyes and forget her for just a few moments. 

I was going to feel this guilt for eternity. A part of me knew it was only right that I suffered in part for her death; another part of me knew that I wouldn't survive eternity if I didn't let her go. 

That's where Jacob fit in; between the cracks of her absence and within the empty space where my soul should be. He didn't start out that way. At first, he was a sore spot, something I wanted gone but didn’t know how to remove. But wolves have a way of getting under one's skin.  
___

He was the one to come to me, in the first few weeks. 

I had been spending a lot of time in the forest behind the house, because I didn't know how to be around anyone. I couldn't look Carlisle in the eye, I couldn't stand Alice's smile, and I sure as hell couldn't deal with Rosalie's knowing looks. So I went to the trees for comfort. I hunted, because I had become starving for _something_. Something to fill whatever died with her.

That's where he found me. 

"You know," he shouted to me, in _that voice_. "I've always been surprised about the flying thing. I didn't think it was included in the bloodsucker package." From where I was in the tree, hundreds of feet above him, I could see his smirk. If I wasn't so numb, I probably would have punched it off his face.

He advanced until his feet hit the base of the tree. His hair looked newly shorn. And he was only half-clothed. And he smelled like dog. 

"Do you just sit up there, like an owl? All day?" When he smiled, his canines sparkled at me, all daunting. Something primal at the pit of my stomach told me to run, or fight. That this was a predator. "You certainly resemble an owl right now. Right down to the beady eyes."

"When did you become a wolf?" It's all I can say. 

He kicks the tree halfheartedly. Runs a hand through his hair. "A week after... you know. They say it was the stress that triggered it early."

I don't know why I haven't run him off the property yet. Probably because I'd find too much satisfaction in him just ending me. "It’s probably good she never knew about you, anyway. She had enough on her mind."

"Yeah, imminent death does that to a person." The ire is clear in his voice. I wonder if he blames me. _I blame me._

We stare at each other. He doesn't look like he’s come to fight, but I still don't want to get down from my perch. 

"Okay, well..." He looks up at me for a few more seconds. Then he leaves.  
___

He visits me four more times before I get down. 

His laugh is surprised when I start my descent. It's been two months now. I've hunted so much that I think Carlisle is worried I'll start craving something more than the occasional deer and whatever small animals live around our property. What he doesn't know is that I'm always craving more, but I like the pain of not getting what I want. A self-sacrificing vampire is a hungry vampire. 

"I didn't think you'd ever leave that tree. I thought you'd built a nice home up there, like a little bird."

I square up to him. "Are you going to kill me now?"

His eyes look tired, like mine would if they could. "Do you want me to kill you?"

I stay silent. 

"Then no."

I look over his shoulder, past the new tattoo. I wonder what it would be like to be part of a pack, instead of belonging aimlessly to a soulless group of villains. 

His fingers snap in my face. "You're fucking spacey. Does it get boring, being in your in your own head all the time?"

"Why are you here?" I could read his mind, but lately it's been harder to access my own thoughts, let alone someone else’s. And I know that the only thing I would see in his head is her.

"Because, you soulless asshole. You are literally the only person who I can talk to about her."

I stare at him, because I have no idea what to say. _If you had been the one to watch her die, I would have killed you by now. I can't even say her name out loud, let alone speak about her with you. I should be paying for her death, not moving on from it._

"I thought you hated me," is what comes out. 

"Oh," he chuckles. "I do. But I think you hate yourself enough for the both of us, right now." He starts walking, the direction that leads further away from the house, and my feet follow him. 

We end up trailing the entire length of the beach, and it takes hours. I could go faster, we both could, but I stick with his pace. He's looking out to the sea, and I know that he's thinking about her. I sense it off him, the longing. And the guilt. And the love. It's so similar to my own thoughts that I can't tell the difference between what he's feeling or what I'm feeling. We've become a matching set of suffering, hung up on this coast to dry up. 

"This is where I first told her about wolves. And about you." His voice is startlingly serious compared to his earlier mood. "Well, just the myths. I remember wanting to tell her all my secrets, just crack right open."

"She does that to you." _Did that._

"She didn't care, either. About monsters being real. Or about them pretending to be human. I always thought it was sick, but she found the goodness in it."

I can’t help but sneer. "What goodness? She just didn't know the entire truth." The truth that I didn't share with her. Because I was a coward who didn't want to lose her.

"I don't know. I think her perspective was pure. It was untainted by all the bullshit we're fed."

"What bullshit?"

"That not a single piece of us is human."

I stay silent, because he's wrong but obviously finds some comfort in the lie. He looks at me and I see the moment when he catches sight of my skin. The widening of his eyes. 

"That shit is weird." I don't answer because I agree but I don't want him to know. "Bella must have freaked."

Something sharp hits me in the chest. "Don't."

"What?"

"Say her name."

He scoffs. "Fine."

We part our ways shortly after that.  
___

I always expect him to give up, to leave me and my sorrow. But he comes back the next day. And the next. 

Sometimes, I talk about her. Not because I particularly want to share my feelings with Jacob Black, but because I feel heavy with my knowledge. I don't know what I'm looking for, but it feels like repentance.

"She wanted to do science. Chemistry. She was so damn smart but she never acted like it mattered."

"I think she would have been really close with Alice. They're both so similar, if she got out of her shell a little. I wanted her to like my family so bad."

"I didn't know she used to do ballet. I can't really picture it."

"Really?" Jacob sits up from where he was laying in the field. Her field. I'm not sure why I brought him here, just that I needed to see it and I couldn't go alone. 

"She never danced in front of me. How was I supposed to know?"

"I don't know." He falls back into the grass. "She looked like a dancer."

The only sounds are the crickets and our muffled sadness. I'm used to the sound of his quiet suffering, now. And I think that each time we meet, it gets quieter. 

"Why the trees?" His voice is a whisper. 

"Hm?"

"You were hiding in the trees. Why?"

I look down at the lilac flowers that surround us. When I pick one, the petals fall apart in my hand. "It was far away from everything." I think about stopping there, but the words just fall out. "And the first time I realized that being what I am didn’t have to hurt her was when I took her up one of the trees and saw how amazed she was."

"It did hurt her, though. In the end." There was a surprising lack of anger in his voice.

"I'm aware."

I startle at his hand on my leg, but he only pats me twice before he pulls away. The warmth lingers.  
___

I often find myself, at night, mouthing the words. 

_Bella is dead._

I lay in on my settee, the small thing that it is, and feel tempted to go to her window, like I did when she was alive. I know now, that it was strange to stick around her when she was asleep. It wasn’t that she was fascinating, though she allowed me to lie to her. 

She was vulnerable. She had no idea how vulnerable she was. And she was trusting. 

And now she’s dead. 

On the worst nights, when the hole in my chest is the most gnawing, a new thought makes its way to the forefront. 

_Victoria is still alive._  
___

“Has Carlisle not noticed I’ve been coming around?” Jacob’s voice is full of doubt, as it should be. 

We’re sitting on the edge of a cliff. I found Jacob in his wolf form here, sitting in a warm spot of sun on the stone. It was the first time he’s allowed me to see the wolf, and only a century of practice allowed me to hide my shock. 

“He knows.”

He rounds on me, his dark eyebrows pulled down in confusion. “Then why am I still alive?”

I debate telling the truth. “He finds comfort in the fact that you’re out here to keep an eye on me when he can’t.”

“I didn’t know you needed a babysitter.”

 _I need someone to keep me from going to the Volturi and asking for a death sentence._ “Don’t you know? Vampires are terribly lonesome. Always wanting some company. Especially from werewolves.”

He’s silent for a second. Then, “Did you just make a joke?”

“I’m not sure.”

“That’s comforting, Cullen. Growth is healthy.” 

“We meet to share our misery over the girl who we both loved and who I let die. There’s nothing healthy about it. And don’t call me ‘Cullen’.”

“I think what we do is just fine.”

_What are we doing?_

“Whatever you say, Black.”  
___

“Is it strange that Victoria hasn’t come back yet?”

Carlisle is reading, and I hate interrupting him. He looks up at me, and I read his answer before he says it out loud. “Yes.”

“We have to go after her, then.”

 _No._ “We shouldn’t. Not without direct provocation or permission from the Volturi.”

“I would think that what happened with Bella counts as a direct provocation.”

“Edward, we can’t find her and kill her.”

“I think we can.”

Carlisle folds his book and puts it gently in his lap. He’s calm. He’s always so calm. I wonder how he would be acting if it was one of us who had been killed. “We cannot. I will not allow this entire family to be put into such danger.”

“Just me, then.” _I need this._

He just looks at me, aware that I can sense his answer without him having to say it.

I leave the room without a word.  
___

For the first time, I seek Jacob out first. 

The itch to hunt down Victoria is incessant. It’s in everything I do; it’s in the way I keep my door open at night, in the way I hide the car keys in my jacket, in the way I avoid Alice because I know she’s seen what my decision will be. 

But I can’t go, because I know that my family will follow me.

I drive down the quiet road to the Black’s estate with both hands gripping the wheel so hard that the leather cracks. It’s raining, because of course it is. 

He’s standing in the driveway when I pull up. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” he calls out before I’ve even gotten out. 

“What, you can invade my property but I can’t come onto yours?”

“Carlisle won’t kill me. I can’t say that for the pack.”

He’s wearing a shirt, which is strange in itself. Something about him looks different out here. Younger. More defiant. At home. I get back in the car and seconds later, he joins me. He shakes his head to clear the water, and all I can smell is wet dog. 

“You’re disgusting,” I say, flinching at the drops that manage to hit me.

“And you’re a cannibal. Where are we headed?”

I shrug as I pull back onto the road. I hate driving this car. Every time I look to my right I expect to see her there. 

“So you’re kidnapping me. Okay, I can handle this. Can we at least go somewhere warm?”

“I just- I needed to get out of the house.” _And every other direction led me to either Victoria or the Volturi._

He’s silent. I look over, and he’s tracing something into the foggy window. “The rain makes me think of her.” 

“Why?”

He laughs. “Because she was always so damn cold.” I would have never been able to fix that. “But so are you. You two, always a perfect match.” It’s been a while since that anger was in his voice. 

“I don’t think either of us were matched well for her,” I say. I feel him turn to look at me. 

“Because we didn’t deserve her?”

“Because she deserved to live.”

He goes back to the window, but I feel his thoughts agree with me.

 _You deserve to live too,_ is what I don’t say.  
___

The first time Jacob and I don’t mention Bella for an entire afternoon is five months after she died. 

We’re sitting in one of the trees; he managed to climb up in his wolf form, much to his protesting. His reaction to the view resembles Bella’s so closely that I for a moment, I forget that I’m supposed to hate him. And then I didn’t want to ruin our shakily built peace by bringing her up. 

Jacob must agree, because he avoids speaking about her too. 

Instead, we speak about the future. The future where I’m not immortal, and Jacob ages at a normal pace. Where I can go in the sunlight and he can watch the moon with human eyes. 

“And I can live somewhere else without abandoning my pack. Somewhere far away,” he says. 

“Where would you go?”

He looks out to the mountain range, lining the harbour. “Mexico, maybe. Or hell, maybe even Australia.” 

“I could never go to either of those places.” A smile tugs at my mouth without my permission. “Trying to run away from me?”

“These are hypotheticals, Cullen. You’re forgetting the game.” He looks over at me and his face is genuine. Warm. “Where would you want to go, if you could go anywhere?”

“I’ve never thought about it.”

He laughs and lays his head on my shoulder. I don’t shrug him off. “Guess you’re coming to Mexico, then.”  
___

Alice comes into my room loudly, the way she does everything. 

“Hi, brother.” She hops up on my settee and pulls a record off from the top shelf. She doesn’t even look at the title before playing it. 

“Hi, Alice.” The music swells around us, an old record from the sixties that I’d forgotten about. 

She twirls once before facing me. “You’re going to kill Victoria.”

I shift uncomfortably to lean against the shelf. “I’m planning to, yes.”

“No, you’re going to. And I want you to know that the path you’re on right now? You won’t survive it.” She shakes her head and a strand of hair falls into her serious eyes. “You’ll _die,_ Edward.” Before I can think of what to answer, she interrupts. “And you don’t care, do you?”

I shake my head. 

She closes her eyes for a moment. Alice. My Alice. I will miss her and she will miss me more, because her heart is big enough to replace the soul that we all lost. 

She hugs me, quickly, whispering, _“Please, don’t.”_

I don’t know what to say, and she leaves.  
___

“I told the pack that I’ve been talking to you,” Jacob says one evening. 

We’re back in the field, because there are fireflies this time of year, and Bella used to love them. I still think about her everyday, but I think about killing Victoria more. 

“And?” 

He shifts from where he was laying next to me and puts his head on my leg. He’s been doing that more lately. Touching. I blame it on the fact that he’s a wolf. “They don’t like it. But I think they know that someone needed to talk to me, and they didn’t know how to.”

I think of the way that Carisle eyes me every time I leave the house, half warning, half regret. “Yeah.”

“It hurts less, now. I think.” He wants me to agree with him. He wants to know that it will get better. 

“Do you want revenge?” I ask, suddenly. I’d been wanting to ask him, but the subject was so unspoken in the house that I didn’t know how to say it out loud. 

He stays facing away from me. “Revenge on who? You killed James.”

“Victoria. The only reason James knew Bella was because Victoria was leading him around to do her bidding.”

He finally sits up. I was expecting anger, agreement, but not concern. “If you think like that, you’ll burn the whole world down.”

“I think it’s a fairly logical conclusion.”

“So if I say that I want to kill all vampires because one of them killed her? What would you think?”

“I’d welcome you to it.”

“Edward.” It’s the first time he’s ever said my name. “You can’t find solace in revenge. That’s so- it’s a classic mistake. You’re obviously wrong.”

He’s radiating heat. I can feel it coming off him in waves. And yet, I feel myself withdrawing, my skin freezing until it may crack like ice. I think of the sound James made when Alice broke off his arm. A porcelain vase, falling from a mantel and shattering, the smell of blood heavy in the air. “Nevermind.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t do something stupid. Stop trying to kill youself over her.”

“Nevermind.”  
___

There was one good day, before I finally broke. 

Jacob had asked me the day before where I’d lived in all my years as a vampire, and I realized that he’d never really been anywhere outside of Forks. 

That night, I packed the car and the next day I took him on a road trip. Just a small one, but enough to make me rest easier about his lack of experience. 

“Who knew the sun actually had a purpose,” he calls, his hand sticking out of his open window to ride the wind. I’m waiting for him to stick his head out too, just to stay on brand. 

“This is only northern California. You should see the southern coast.” It’s beautiful. We had to take the entire route to get to Forks, and I remember wanting to stay. 

“We could see it. You could just keep driving.”

“Your dogs would chase after us. We wouldn’t last a day.”

He leans his head on his outstretched arm and says quietly, “I know.”

I find a secluded beach somewhere, where there is no chance that someone might stumble upon us. Jacob runs right into the water, and when he emerges, he’s in wolf form. I take a seat on the warm sand and watch him run laps, not looking forward to the way he’s going to stink up my car. The radiating happiness from him is worth it, though. 

I throw him a towel once he’s done and he collapses into the sand, spraying bits into my hair. I shake it out and he laughs. “The sun is doing wonders for your complexion. Positively glowing.”

“Shut up,” I say, but I know I’m smiling. 

“Can you tan? Is that a thing?”

“I’ve never been in the sun long enough to find out.”

“Damn." He wraps his towel around his shoulders and it makes him look like a kid. He watches me closely for a second then shakes his head with a knowing smile. "You're aloud to enjoy this, you know. You don't owe it to her to be sad forever."

"I am enjoying this." _And I owe her a lot more than that._

"Hm. Don’t blame me for not believing you."

"What would convince you?"

He thinks a moment, then smiles. It takes up his whole face, and though it looks strange for me to see him so pleased, it suits him. Like the sun in today’s sky. "Jump in the water." 

I don’t want to. I really don’t want to. But he’s looking at me like he knows I won’t, and that bothers me more than anything. 

“Fine.” I take off my shoes first, then my shirt. I’ll just run in quickly. I haven’t swam in decades, but I think it’ll come back to me. 

“You’re nervous,” he calls up at me. 

“No, I’m not.” Pants are off. I have to go in. 

“You are! Do vampires know how to swim?”

“I was a human, once,” I snap, and he falls quiet. I advance quickly through the sand; it burns the cold soles of my feet, and I try to refrain from running. The wind whips through my hair, and the closer I get to the shoreline, the louder the waves become. The ocean looks endless. I imagine it would be easy to lose yourself in it, to swim too far from shore and never quite make it back. 

Before I can contemplate how far I could get without Jacob coming after me, something grabs my hand. 

“Come on, bloodsucker,” he yells, and pulls me in. It’s colder than I thought it would be but I hardly need time to adjust; in a few tugs we’re in fairly deep, and he dunks his head under. I follow. 

All sound except for the muffled waves vanishes. 

His warm hand is holding onto me still, tight enough that I know I won’t be going anywhere. I close my eyes and drift. It’s just me, him and the ocean. It’s scary as hell but it also feels something like peace. In the back of my mind there is Bella yet I know that I have Jacob here with me, and the thought is somehow comforting. 

He actually needs to breathe air, so he pulls up first. When I emerge, his face is inches from mine, smiling wider than before. His hair is falling into his face, and I want to brush it away. “Not so bad, right?”

“I could do without the taste of salt.”

He ignores me. “I think you love it. Next thing I know, you’ll be joining Sam to do some cliff-diving.”

I roll my eyes and twist my body so that I can float. The sky is clear and the waves aren’t really so bad. I can just lay here. Just for a bit. 

His hand stays in mine.  
___

On the sixth month anniversary of her death, I pack my bag. Half a year. Twenty-four weeks of wanting to avenge her but being too pitiful to do it. In my bag, I pack only enough to get to Victoria. 

I take the car to Seattle, and I leave in the night. It’s redundant, because no one is sleeping, but Carlisle is working night shift and everyone else has learned to leave me alone. I leave a note for Alice, telling her to let me go. I can only hope that she listens. 

Everyone knows that Victoria is in Seattle, building the idea of an army using newborns. Carlisle is waiting for the Volturi to deal with her. The Volturi are waiting for her to get herself killed so they don’t have to. I’m not partial to either decision, only that the thought of crushing her into pieces is what is keeping me alive.

I check into a hotel first, mostly for show but also to park the car. It would be best if she found me first, and it would be helpful to spread my scent around the city. A breadcrumb trail of redemption. A shadowed, distorted version of what got Bella killed.

I begin at the pier where Victoria’s gang last murdered someone. A teenager, fifteen. Julia, I think it was. Slowly, I walk along the edge of the city, deep in the alleyways that would attract vampires that aren’t like my family. The evil ones. The ones who actually act on their nature. The ones like me, without the pretending.

It’s around four in the morning when she finds me. I can sense her thoughts from a mile away, calling to me. Sickly little messages, all about Bella. 

_Come for revenge, lovesick little bird?_

_The only reason you’re alive is because she died with James._

_I liked seeing you suffer._

I stop and wait for her. I let her voice in my head fester and bubble. I think of all the ways I’ve imagined killing her, and I let them guide me. 

“Took you long enough,” is what she says when she arrives. She has blood on her chin and it trails down her neck into the collar of her jacket. I don’t waste any time to chat; I run towards her, as fast as my strength will take me, and grab her by the throat. She takes my hands without a flinch and flips me onto the ground. I think my head cracks against the concrete, but I get up anyways. 

The world turns into a stop-motion film, a series of images that I can’t keep track of. 

She throws me against a brick wall and it falls to pieces under my weight. 

I punch her in the stomach and she smiles at me. 

She takes my head in her hands and I close my eyes, waiting for the shatter. 

“This is for James,” she snarls, her hands shaking around me. Her thoughts aren’t even legible, anymore. Just screaming. She’s screaming at me so loud that I think I might be screaming too. 

Then, silence. 

Her hands are ripped away from me. _She’s_ ripped away from me; thrown across the alley by something quick as a shadow. It pins her down and growls, and she stays underneath it. 

“Jacob?” My voice is a whisper, and I hope that the wind will carry it over to him. 

His head whips over to me and he growls again. I know it’s him from the eyes, glowing in the moonlight. He must have followed my scent here, and for some reason, I’m not surprised that he bothered to follow me at all. 

He seems to be waiting for me. I stand as quickly as I can, my head still dizzy from both the fight and her grip. I stumble over to them, and lean over his shoulder. He has both paws sunk deep in her shoulders, and she’s struggling enough that I know she won’t be there for long. 

Without looking at him, I grab her head and pull.  
___

He won’t speak with me. 

The entire ride back from Seattle is completely silent. He sits stewing in the passenger seat, his head leaned up against the window. He won’t even look at me. 

“How did you find me?” I ask, not really expecting an answer. 

After a long pause, he says, “Alice called me. I ran the entire way.” He sighs and rubs his face with his hand. “And I almost didn’t make it.”

“You didn’t have to make it. I wasn’t expecting you to.”

“That’s besides the point, Edward.”

“What is the point?”

He turns to me angrily. “The point is that I like you! You’re my friend, and you almost died! And you can’t even see how that would have left me.” His face is completely scrunched up in rage and I don’t know what to do. I can’t tell if this is the end of something or the start of something. If I want to shut him out or -

I pull over and he gets out the moment the car stops. 

“I didn’t know it would affect you that much,” I start, approaching him slowly. He’s pacing in front of the car, and I’m slightly afraid he’s more wolf than human. 

“You’re so bent on getting killed that you can’t even see what’s to live for. And that is so fucking infuriating.”

“I didn’t want to die. I just knew it might be part of the deal.” I stop in front of him and he stops walking.

“Dying shouldn’t ever be part of the deal.”

“It is when you’re a vampire.”

“Edward.” He comes up to me and puts his head on my shoulder. He’s so warm and heavy that I don’t think I can hold him up. “I want you to want to live. And I don’t want you to need someone else to keep you alive.”

For some reason, I think about the ocean, then. The way it’s terribly lonesome until someone visits a beach, looking for infinity. But it remains, no matter what.

“I think I’ve been looking for life in the wrong places,” I whisper. 

He tucks his face into my neck a little further and nods. 

We stand like that for a while, until my head falls on top of his. And then we stand like that just a little longer.  
___

Carlisle and Esme insist that he comes for dinner to thank him for saving my life. I try and convince them out of it, with some strong-handed help from the rest of the house. Rosalie actually leaves for the night, refusing to meet him. I don’t blame her. 

I wait for him in the driveway, and I can see his hesitation. 

“They won’t kill you,” I say in a crooked form of comfort. Killing him would mean all out war with the wolves, so obviously he’ll make it out alive. “And they won’t bite.”

“What would that look like, anyway? A werewolf-vampire hybrid?” His smile is forced but I like seeing it regardless. 

“Destructive but efficient, I’d say.” I lead him into the house and he shudders. 

“The opera music is excessive,” he whispers. 

I smile, mostly because I know they would have heard his whispering from upstairs. “Esme likes it.”

They all look up when we walk in, assembled almost exactly how they were when I first brought Bella. The last time I brought her.  
Except this time I have Jacob at my side, so warm that I want him closer, and it doesn’t feel so bad to remember.

“I hope you like hamburgers,” Esme says, and Carlisle winks at me. Alice comes over and wraps an arm around Jacob, already possessive.  
Not so bad at all.  
___

The next time we go to the beach, the one with the hot sand and the sun and the clear sky, he kisses me. 

We packed up and left when he got out of school, because he claimed he’d never had a summer vacation and I was up to indulging him. This time, we planned on staying a few days, and I had a hotel booked in the small town not far from the sea. 

It’s been two months since I killed Victoria, and two months since I started trying to find my future. Right now, it looks a lot like this. 

A new edition of an old book. An empty beach with thousand-year-old sand. A timeless day with nothing to do. 

And a werewolf with a penchant for making me do things I hadn’t found myself wanting to do for a century. 

He pulls me into the water the moment we get there this time, and I can’t make a fuss about it because his laughter is so light I think it may be a giggle. I wish I could feel the water the way he must; a complete shock to the system, a cold hug against warm skin. But I also want to find a reason to enjoy it for myself. So I stay underwater as long as I want, because that’s what I can do, and I like the silence.

When I come up, I’ve barely opened my eyes before his mouth is on mine. 

He tastes like salt and laughter and I don’t know why we didn’t do this sooner. It’s just a short thing, but long enough that I want to do it again. His blood is pumping, I can hear it and feel it but I know he’s safe. He’s strong enough to kill me twice but I don’t want that. Just another kiss, maybe. 

“You could dive all the way to the bottom! That’s amazing,” he’s saying, but I shut him up before he can go on. 

I like the silence and I like him and I think I might like life.  
___

When I realize I love Jacob Black, it’s a Thursday. 

The sky is grey, but it’s really not so bad. The beach is always a car ride away, and I just bought a house there, for emergency vacations. Or whenever Jacob makes us go. 

We’re sitting on the tailgate of his truck, the one that used to belong to Bella, and both of them fill my thoughts. Jacob, because he’s sitting half on my lap, and he’s talking about pack drama, and I think I might love him. Bella, because she was my first love, and that will never change, but I’ve changed. And that’s okay. 

I’d always thought about how I might die, but someone taught me to think about how I might live. 

And that’s enough to save anyone.


End file.
